


Catch Me If Ever I Fall

by Angel Ascending (angel_in_ink)



Series: Short and Sweet (Fics of About 1000 Words or Less) [26]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Shippy if you Squint, Spoilers for Episode 51 of Campaign 2, character introspection, you don't have to squint hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 17:18:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17812166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_in_ink/pseuds/Angel%20Ascending
Summary: Caleb reaches for another handhold, only for his sweaty hands to lose purchase on the rock.That’s what you get, he tells himself, giddy with terror as he reaches for another handhold, another, anything. The rocks come away in his hands, his fingers skitter through loose gravel. You let yourself be vulnerable. You bared yourself and now you’re slipping, slipping, slipping.





	Catch Me If Ever I Fall

Caleb stares at his hands as he climbs, his bare hands, leading up to his bare arms. They’re a bit pale, freckled, and he can see the scars because he knows where to look. Everyone can see them now, if they looked. It’s no longer a secret. Just one more thing they know. Every time he tells them more about himself, he waits for that thing to be the one that tips the scales, upsets the balance, causes them all to realize how horrible he is. It hasn’t happened yet. He’s starting to wonder if it ever will. The fact that they might not reject him someday is terrifying. Rejection he expects, he’s planned for rejection. Acceptance… that’s something he doesn’t deserve and doesn’t dare hope for.

Caleb reaches for another handhold, only for his sweaty hands to lose purchase on the rock.

_That’s what you get,_ he tells himself, giddy with terror as he reaches for another handhold, another, anything. The rocks come away in his hands, his fingers skitter through loose gravel. _You let yourself be vulnerable. You bared yourself and now you’re slipping, slipping, slipping._

Caleb feels himself begin to half fall, half slide down the tunnel and his stomach lurches in anticipation of free fall. Will he have time to reach for the feather in his pocket and say the words of a spell, or will it be like the time he had fallen from an apple tree in his youth, with seemingly no time passing from the start of the fall and its end?

Something snags his collar, and he hears Jester squeak with exertion and surprise, hears the scrape of nails against stone and the squeak turns pained. She’s losing her grip, they’re both going to go down, a bloody tumble against jagged rocks and he will not let that happen, he—

Beau shouts something to Fjord and then Caleb feels arms against him, supporting him further, clasped hands at the small of his back. It gives him enough time to find his footing as Jester hauls him up so they’re next to each other.

“There you go!” Jester says brightly, as if they had been walking down a road and she had steadied him after tripping.

“Thank you,” Caleb whispers, then turns to look over his shoulder at Fjord and Beau, focusing on them and not the drop. “Thank you.”

“It’s not like we’d let you fall,” Beau says.

“Everything all right back there?” Yasha calls down.

“We’re good!” Fjord calls back.

Nugget barks as if in agreement as they continue climbing.

It’s getting colder now and Caleb shivers as the sweat of fear evaporates from his skin. They’re getting closer to the exit, closer to fresh air and sky and new dangers he is sure. He realizes he’s repeating the words for the feather fall spell under his breath like a prayer at the same time that his hand slips again and he reaches out for Jester, who grabs his wrist easily.

“You’re not going anywhere!” Jester says as she guides his hand back to the rocks. This close he can see that her nails are broken, and there are tiny smudges of blood at the tips of her fingers. It has to hurt, but her smile doesn’t show any signs of slipping, unlike him. “I am very strong.”

“Yes you are,” Caleb says quietly as he wonders again, as he has wondered before, just how much is hiding behind that smile.

They finally emerge into the light, walk out onto a gray landscape with gray skies and blot of darkness in the valley below them, an unnatural deep shadow. They all take a minute to rest, and after Jester frees Nugget from is improvised carry sling, Caleb sits next to her, reaching for his waterskin and the roll of bandages he had used to use to wrap his arms. “Give me your hand.”

“What? Oh, it’s fine,” Jester says with a dismissive wave, but she doesn’t resist when Caleb reaches for it. “It’s hardly anything.”

“It is something,” Caleb says as he washes the dirt and grit from underground away, as he wraps her fingers with quick, practiced motions. “I am sorry you hurt yourself in saving me.”

“Well I’m not,” Jester says. “I’m not sorry.” She reverses her hand in his, squeezes his fingers. “I wasn’t going to just let you fall, Caleb.”

_That is because you don’t know what I’ve done_ , Caleb thinks to himself, but he’s no longer sure if that is true, if her rejection would be such a sure thing. The thought of her acceptance both terrifies and warms him, but all he does is gently squeeze her hand before letting her go and standing up to join the others.

**Author's Note:**

> "This is not a shipping fic," I say as I title it with a lyric from "When You Say Nothing At All," by Alison Krauss.
> 
> Seriously, read it how you like. I love their friendship and I ship them as pale (platonic) as I did Yasha and Molly, but I can't deny that I could totally see romance between them if things went that way. Everyone loves Jester.
> 
> I'm angel-ascending over on Tumblr and angel_in_ink on Twitter if y'all want to stop by and say hi!


End file.
